An English university and a dairy organization have come up with a new mastitis-detecting tool that will help farmers and veterinarians reduce antibiotic use by identifying correct strains to be treated.
The new Mastitis Pattern Tool has been developed by the AHDB Dairy and Nottingham University Research partnership.
Scientists at the university say the new tool is easy to use and will give farmers and vets a better understanding of the mastitis patterns in the herd, allowing them to better use a veterinarian’s expertise for the prevention of mastitis rather than just treating mastitis once it is present.
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Mastitis is one of the most persistent diseases worldwide affecting the dairy industry.
Udder infections cost farmers billions in lost milk sales and increased veterinary expenses, so targeting precise strains of disease should shave some costs.
AHDB said within dairy businesses, there is a lot of data associated with mastitis, but the challenge comes when trying to use the data to make informed decisions to combat the disease.
The developers say the Mastitis Pattern Tool identifies problem areas and potential risks to udder health and gives farmers and vets a way of tracking progress in the herd.
The tool uses somatic cell count (SCC) and clinical mastitis records.
It produces a mastitis pattern report that allows farmers and vets to assess and prioritize key management areas and potentially detect emerging problems.
Milk recording herds are at an advantage as cow SCC information is readily available. The tool converts and merges records into a simple output allowing farmers to assess the patterns of mastitis in the herd.
Dr. Jenny Gibbons, senior dairy scientist at AHDB, said the tool provides an automated way to assess predominant infection patterns.
Conventional tests used to identify mastitis infections usually take 48 hours or longer.
Faster testing methods fail to distinguish between subspecies of bacteria and cannot determine whether the bacteria is resistant to certain antibiotics.
Without fast, affordable and effective testing, veterinarians often rely on broad-spectrum antibiotics, which increases the pressure on antibiotics and may contribute to the increase in antimicrobial resistance.
Recent research has shown that Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization — Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is one way of overcoming these problems, but only detects the presence of specific bacterial fingerprints in a sample. This necessitates the need for further research to make it a useful tool for veterinarians.
The latest research aims to see if it is possible to use MALDI-TOF MS to discriminate between penicillin-resistant and non-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus.
By identifying specific strains of bacteria using a method that returns quick diagnostic data, the mass treatment of dairy cows with broad-spectrum antibiotics could be avoided.
